
I love Mexico City. No matter how many times you go there, there is always something new to explore. This time we went to what might be the most obvious choice for a tourist: Templo Mayor.
Mexico City, or Tenochtitlan as the city was called before the arrival of the Spaniards, was founded in 1325 by the Mexica people (also called the Aztecs). Tenochtitlan was located on an island in the Lake Texcoco and the ruins of this prehispanic city can now be found in the centre of today´s Mexico City.
According to the Mexica, they had been led to this spot by Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. He had told them that when they would find an eagle, sitting on a nopal cactus, with a snake in its beak, then that would be the place of their new home. That was supposed to be the exact location of where they later constructed Templo Mayor. The story about the eagle is also the explanation behind the symbol on the Mexican flag.

In 1519, the Spaniards, under Hernan Cortés arrived to Tenochtitlan. Templo Mayor, which was one of the main temples of the Mexica, was destroyed in 1521 and covered together with the rest of the city by the new Spanish colonial city.
At the end of the 19th century, archaeologists started to excavate the city centre, searching for traces of Tenochtitlan. At first, excavations were made beneath the Cathedral as it was first thought that Templo Mayor was to be found there (the church in Cholula, Puebla was built on top of a pyramid for example). However, it wasn´t until the 1970s that Templo Mayor was fully excavated.
Today you can find the archaeological site, together with the museum of Templo Mayor, at the corner of the Zócalo, next to the cathedral. It is impressive to stand there and be able to look at three different eras at the same time; The modern Mexico City, the colonial city and its cathedral, as well as the ruins of the pre-hispanic Tenochtitlan.
Templo Mayor consists of several pyramids, or temples, that were built one on top of the other. The first pyramid was built sometime after 1325 and after that they built six more on top of it. The seventh and the last temple was the one that Hernan Cortés saw when he arrived to the city. There is little known about this last layer because of to the destroyal by the Spaniards.
From the historical records, the seventh temple was a very large and important ceremonial centre. There were two smaller temples situated on the top. One of them was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, and the other one to Tláloc, the god of rain and water.
An important sculptural figure in the temple, is the “Chacmool”. The Chacmool was thought to have served as a mediator between the humans and the gods, and to whom the Aztecs would give their human offerings. After these human sacrifices, where the hearts would be removed and placed in the bowl on the lap of the Chacmool, the bodies would be thrown down the stairs.


The Chacmool (see picture above) is well preserved and you can still see it at the archaeological site. Other smaller, and more fragile objects, have been moved to the new-built museum next to the site where you can take a closer look at the different objects from the prehispanic city.
Mexico City might be a polluted and overpopulated city, but the Zócalo is beautiful and impressive, and when you walk around it, you can almost feel some of the magic of the city´s dramatic history.


Museo del Templo Mayor website >>